The big ongoing political story now is the Republican Party leadership steadily, inexorably surrendering branding of the party and the party’s actions to its most conservative members. Some say the GOP doesn’t have leadership. It increasingly looks as if it does: House Republicans. And now we have another example:
After GOP leadership capitulated to conservative demands, the House narrowly passed legislation Thursday to cut food stamp spending by nearly $40 billion over 10 years.
The bill passed 217 to 210. Fifteen Republicans joined 195 Democrats in voting against the bill. Six members did not vote; 217 votes were the threshold for passing the measure.
The bill will now likely be merged with the rest of the farm bill passed by the House in July in conference with the Senate. The Senate-passed farm bill cut food stamp spending by a far smaller amount, $4 billion over 10 years, so the program’s funding could be a sticking point between the two chambers.
It’s now clear to many Americans what Republican domination of both houses of Congress and the Presidency would mean: power place in the hands of the Republican Party’s most conservative elements, elements that would probably not accept Ronald Reagan or even Barry Goldwater as “real” Republicans but RINOS for some of their stands and their willingness to reach across the aisle on some issues.
Senate Democratic aides previously told TPM that their caucus wouldn’t agree to cuts anywhere near what the House has passed.
“House Republicans have turned their backs on American families struggling to put food on the table. It’s true the bill being considered in the House of Representatives today would save $40 billion. But how would it save that $40 billion?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday on the Senate floor. “By snatching food out of the hands of millions of the neediest children and their families. House Republicans are determined to gut the nutrition assistance program, although 9 out of 10 recipients are families with children, senior citizens or people with disabilities.”
The vote is a victory for House Republican leadership after food stamps were the source of an embarrassing episode during the June farm bill vote. Majority Leader Eric Cantor was forced to pull the bill, which had $20 billion in food stamp cuts, from the floor because it didn’t have enough support from conservatives, who wanted deeper cuts. The House then passed in July a farm bill without any food stamp provisions.
Stay tuned for more fun and games — well, let’s just say GAMES — when it comes to shutting the government down and the debt ceiling. The handwriting isn’t just on the wall for ideology and power-politics trumping consensus, governance and political coalition building.
The wall is falling down.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.